Every Friday for eleven months, on a note that was supposed to run six

I put 55 thousand behind a hard money loan on a small duplex conversion. The borrower was a contractor I'd known for about four years through a neighbor. Six month term, interest only, balloon at the end. I was slow about it, I asked for a lot of paperwork, I met him at the property twice before I sent anything.

Month six came and the refinance didn't. His appraisal came in low, and the lender he'd lined up wanted a longer seasoning period than he expected. So we were in the part where nobody has done anything wrong and the money still isn't there.

Here's what he did, and it's the reason I'd work with him again. Every Friday he called me. Not a text. A phone call, usually around four, sometimes from his truck. He told me what happened that week, including the weeks where nothing happened. He said the words "no change" to me at least five times and I never once wondered where my money was.

He paid me in month eleven out of a sale, not a refinance. I got the interest for the extra five months because we'd written that in. The dollars worked out fine.

The part I think about is that if he'd gone silent in month seven, I'd have spent four months assuming the worst and probably done something expensive about it. The calls were worth more to me than the extra interest was.